A new paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters describes how the oceans have warmed only 0.09°C over the last 55 years, from 1955-2010. Don’t let the red line fool you, read on.
Key Points
- A strong positive linear trend in exists in world ocean heat content since 1955
- One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the ocean
- The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs
That last bullet point makes me cringe a bit, because I seriously doubt the resolution of this study down to hundredths of degrees seeing the sort of measurements mess we’ve seen in the surface network. Nonetheless, even if the resolution is low, there’s little trend.
At the Hockey Schtick they write about Trenberth’s missing heat:
According to the authors, this resulted in a sea level rise of 0.54 mm per year [only 2.12 inches per century] and corresponds to 0.39 Watts per square meter of the ocean surface. However, the IPCC claims the increase in CO2 from 1955-2010 ‘should’ have warmed the oceans by 1.12 Watts per square meter [5.35*ln(389.78/312) = 1.12 W/m2].
Thus, even if one assumes all ocean warming is due to increased greenhouse gases, the IPCC has exaggerated climate sensitivity to CO2 by a factor of almost 3 times [1.12/0.39]. [This is why Trenberth can’t find his “missing heat“-it never existed in the first place]. In reality, greenhouse gases cannot warm the oceans at all because they radiate infrared which only penetrates the surface of water a few microns to cause evaporative cooling.
Here’s the paper:
World ocean heat content and thermosteric sea level change (0–2000 m), 1955–2010
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L10603, 5 PP., 2012
doi:10.1029/2012GL051106
S. Levitus – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
J. I. Antonov -UCAR Project Scientist, National Oceanographic Data Center, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
T. P. Boyer -National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
O. K. Baranova – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
H. E. Garcia -National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
R. A. Locarnini – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
A. V. Mishonov -National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
J. R. Reagan – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
D. Seidov – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
E. S. Yarosh – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
M. M. Zweng -National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Abstract:
We provide updated estimates of the change of ocean heat content and the thermosteric component of sea level change of the 0–700 and 0–2000 m layers of the World Ocean for 1955–2010. Our estimates are based on historical data not previously available, additional modern data, and bathythermograph data corrected for instrumental biases. We have also used Argo data corrected by the Argo DAC if available and used uncorrected Argo data if no corrections were available at the time we downloaded the Argo data. The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–2000 m layer increased by 24.0 ± 1.9 × 1022 J (±2S.E.) corresponding to a rate of 0.39 W m−2 (per unit area of the World Ocean) and a volume mean warming of 0.09°C.
This warming corresponds to a rate of 0.27 W m−2 per unit area of earth’s surface. The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–700 m layer increased by 16.7 ± 1.6 × 1022 J corresponding to a rate of 0.27 W m−2 (per unit area of the World Ocean) and a volume mean warming of 0.18°C. The World Ocean accounts for approximately 93% of the warming of the earth system that has occurred since 1955. The 700–2000 m ocean layer accounted for approximately one-third of the warming of the 0–2000 m layer of the World Ocean. The thermosteric component of sea level trend was 0.54 ± .05 mm yr−1 for the 0–2000 m layer and 0.41 ± .04 mm yr−1 for the 0–700 m layer of the World Ocean for 1955–2010.
Additional figures:
ferd berple says:
May 16, 2012 at 11:11 pm
Since water droplets in the air are all like charged, they should repel each other, causing the clouds to disperse. Water should be well mixed in the atmosphere, but it isn’t. Why?
Water is actually neutral but highly polar. So the oxygen end is slightly negative and the hydrogen ends are slightly positive. As a result the hydrogen end of one water molecule is attracted to the oxygen end of the next water molecule in what is known as hydrogen bonding. That is why it takes so much energy to evaporate water molecules. And that is also why water molecules in the air attract each other and why water vapor is not well mixed. Unlike all other gases, water condenses at a certain point which depends on water vapor concentration and temperature.
For much more information on the properties of water, see
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/climate2.htm#Ice_ages
So where did all those nuclear bombs go to? I thought we had 10,000 Hiroshimas an hour adding to global temperatures.
Don’t tell me they were lying, please. Like my parents telling me about Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, I believed every word….
/sarc
This is just rubbish as rubbish goes.
Earth is cooling
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
but earth also has a store
to keep energy
so it might take some time before we see the cooling
in fact I hope cooling will be over sooner rather than later….
“The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs
the oceans have warmed only 0.09°C over the last 55 years, from 1955-2010.”
There only needs to be a one pecent change in solar levels over this period directly. Nevermind how global cloud levels changed from the early 1980’s until now.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 17, 2012 at 8:34 am
tonyb says:
May 17, 2012 at 7:27 am
january 1740 £23 to be given to poor in consideration of the severity of the winter season
1783. Extra poor relief due to extreme cold.
Yeah, global warming ain’t what it used to be…
======================================================
1783……That date rings a bell for some reason.
Ding! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki
Trenberth’s missing heat is in the KT97 comic cartoon energy budget produced to create the fiction of thermal infrared heat backradiation.
Wordpress screwups prevented me from posting this on Tallblokes –
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/doug-cotton-radiated-energy-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
Stephen Wilde says:
February 25, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Ray Tomes said:
“More molecules absorb more heat, but NOT more heat per molecule. Temperature is heat per molecule. The argument is unsound.”
Molecules absorb more photons from the sun either directly or via conduction from the surface. The additional energy in the molecules causes increased vibration of those molecules. That vibration is known as kinetic energy. That kinetic energy generates IR longwave which is recorded as heat in a sensor designed to display the level of heat as what we call temperature.
=======
You do us a great service in bringing in real physics re ‘backradiation’, but you let us down by continuing to promote the AGWScienceFiction fisics of ‘shortwave heating the Earth’ – these shortwaves in the comic cartoon energy budget work on electronic transition levels not molecule/atomic vibrational, they are incapable of moving atoms and molecules to vibration which, as you say, is what it takes to get kinetic energy.
Why, generally to all of you working to this cartoon energy budget, are you so oblivious to the fact that this junk science fiction has completely removed the actual direct heat from the Sun which is thermal infrared and which is capable of moving atoms/molecules into vibration, that is, of heating them up?
And which is what we feel direct from the Sun as heat, so the AGW comic cartoon claims that it doen’t reach the surface is gobbledegook nonsense.
This AGW “shortwave in longwave out” is so stupid it’s mindblowing that none of you object to it…
Shortwave, Light, from the Sun cannot and does not heat organic matter, thermal infrared heat from the Sun does.
The direct heat from the Sun to Earth, which is the Sun’s thermal energy on the move, which is longwave infrared, which is invisible thermal infrared, which is real heat – IS MISSING.
The HEAT you actually feel from the Sun, IS MISSING.
Are you all under some hypnotic spell or something? This is so obvious.
I looked at the cited document http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/gcj_3w.pdf
At a heat accumulation rate in the deep ocean (below 4000 m) of 0.027 w/m^2 (with the possiblity that the rate will fall below zero in the coming 20 years) this does not look like much of a looming catastrophe. Compared with the incoming TSI is it about .000001 of the Total Solar Irradiance and about 1/75 of the known variation in TSI which many claim has ‘no influence’ because it is too small. The TSI in the UV during the 30 year period covered by the data was relatively high compared with historical levels. Yes/no?
If this citation is the ‘proof of the heat accumulating in the deep oceans’ it is proof of almost nothing. Statistically there is no difference between zero and a heating rate of 0.027 W/m^2 if TSI varies by 75 times that. Further, 0.027 is 5% of the claimed forcing of 1.6 W from anthropogenic CO2 http://junkscience.com/climate-features/evidence-that-cosmic-rays-seed-clouds/ so the 1.6 W is not ‘hiding there’.
Exactly what are the claims made when this paper is cited in support? The claim that an anthropogenic warming signal from industrial CO2 can be detected in the deep oceans is obviously unsupportable. In fact it is pretty good proof there is no such signal at all down there.
In the top 700 m there is a larger temperature rise 1980-2010, but it is also common knowledge that 2003-2011 has seen no rise (see ARGO data) in that zone. As there is little direct solar heating of the Southern Ocean (where most of the heat was found) it “is likely to be at least partly caused by advection of warmer water directly from the sources [up-current].” p.6349 This speaks to the ‘melting of ice in the Antarctic’. It is not from higher air temperatures from GHG’s, it is from warm water moving in from the north. The air temps in the tropics where the warm water comes from are not higher so, where exactly is the anthropogenic signal to be detected?
Louis Hooffstetter says:
May 17, 2012 at 8:08 am
TonyB says….
Tony, I suspect this paper by Purkey & Johnson will be used by the IPCC to claim Trenberth’s missing heat is in the abyssal depths:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/gcj_3w.pdf
The Introduction could have been written by Trenberth himself. Basically, the authors looked at temperature profile data (collected via soundings takne along ship track lines) between 1980 and 2010. Analysis of the data supposedly shows an increase in ocean heat content of 0.027 (+- 0.009) W m22 applied over the entire surface of the earth. I am not fully qualified to assess the methods used in this paper, but IMHO, it appears to be long on assumptions and interpolation and short on good empirical data.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is at the end of that paper:
“Acknowledgments. Our heartfelt thanks go to all
those who helped to collect, calibrate, and process the
WOCE and GO-SHIP data analyzed here. Discussions
with John Lyman were useful. Comments from Susan
Hautala, Takeshi Kawano, Michael Meredith, LuAnne
Thompson, Joshua Willis, Carl Wunsch, and two anonymous
reviewers improved the manuscript.”
Is it normal to acknowledge “anonymous reviewers”? Maybe it is. I don’t know how to ask that without making implications, but is it normal?
Gunga Din says:
May 17, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Is it normal to acknowledge “anonymous reviewers”? Maybe it is. I don’t know how to ask that without making implications, but is it normal?
Yes that is very normal.
Radiated to space by CO2. Maybe.
Look closer at water since there are 2 variations of water hydrogen bonding possible. One is the straight across hydrogen H-O-H configuration and the other more of a triangulation of hydrogens to oxygen, like H H
\ /
O
Hydrogen bonds vary in strength. High density water has it’s hydrogen bonds to oxygen at “bent” (\ /) angles; thus 2 high density water molecules are closer to each other (denser). The bent bonding is a weaker linkage. Low density water’s hydrogen atoms link straight across between their respective oxygen atoms. The straight across bond is the stronger linkage.
High and low density types of water molecules involve energy (like heat) adjustments, which affects the mineral solution of the media. Minerals in the media solution interact a little differently due to particulars of basic hydrogen symmetry integral in high or low density water. Sea water is a medium with other minerals. Low density water influences positive ions K+ (potassium) to “move”; this creates a local osmotic pressure gradient & increased viscosity at the K+ charged surface. Low density water’s influence on positive ions like Na+ (sodium) seems to move them away less & limits viscosity at the Na+ charged surface.
Elevated surface pressure gradient on water induces high density water configuration conditions, whereas low density water configuration is more prevalent when there’s less pressure on a water molecules’ surface. So deeper in the ocean we expect more high density water & in shallower seas, due to less surface pressure gradient, get more low density water. The viscosity associated with low density water (described above) is in line with Gnosperm’s comment ocean surface “thicker.”
To take away viscosity requires the inter-conversion of low density water to high density water; or conversely stated, to reducing fluidy requires the inter-conversion of high density water to low density water. Conservation of energy is thus seen when there is less inter-conversion of high density water into low density water ; or conversely, more inter-conversion of low density water into high density water that stays then stays high density water. Of course the solute concentration of each water medium affects the ability to inter-convert those 2 water configurations & this may be a modifier tied to seasonal (or otherwise) upwellings. Different data on ocean temperatures at select depths may also be due (in part) to the relative influence of solutes & where that favors a gradient of less low density water molecules being converted from high density water molecules the compound energy conserved shows up as measurable “heat” in lower ocean strata.
Leif
More to the point is to work out who the two anonymous reviewers might be. There are a limited number of people in this field, most either wrote the paper or are referred to in the acknowledgements. I’m guessing Trenberth might be one of the two anonymous reviewers.Any other suggestions?
tonyb
trying again with high density water schematic:
H H
\ /
O
Crispin in Waterloo @5/17-1:21 p.m. :
Good post, but in para. 3 one thing confuses me. You note the deep ocean “heating rate” (from the Purkey & Johnson paper) is 0.027 W/m^2. You also note that the [I assume industrial era] “forcing” from CO2 is 1.6 W/m^2. But you also claim that the former is 5% of the latter. This is where I got lost. 5% of 1.6 W/m^2 is 0.08 W/m^2. Am I missing something, maybe a difference between heating rate and forcing?
>>
J. Philip Peterson says:
May 17, 2012 at 7:22 am
Hillier & Watts (2007) surveyed 201,055 submarine volcanoes estimating that a total of 3,477,403 submarine volcanoes exist worldwide.
<<
I always like estimates that are able to give us seven significant figures. Are the error bars really ±0? Those last 403 volcanoes seem a bit too precise for my taste.
Jim
‘I seriously doubt the resolution of this study down to hundredths of degrees ‘
especial was what it taken the measurements is no where good enough to give that level of accuracy. Ask any engineer and they will tale you the best accuracy you can get is never better than the instrument you use to get it no matter how much ‘modeling ‘ you use to come up with your numbers .
For clarity I would suggest that the title of this post be reformatted to something like:
“Trenberth’s missing heat still missing: new paper shows a near flat ocean temperature trend – up 0.09°C over the past 55 years”
I predict: it’s underneath all the pavement we’ve been laying down for the last 60 years, and that it’s the pavement that has been causing the majority of what anthropogenic atmospheric warming has actually occurred – not CO2.
I am going to ask what may be a stupid question. Do the climate models and the analysis include the effects of photosynthesis? I have been reading descriptions of the models and I can’t identify it. The reason that I ask is that the joules of energy taken of the climate by photosynthesis is large. The 50 gigatonnes, 10E15 grams, of carbon that is produced in the ocean each year, see http://www.science.oregonstate.edu/ocean.productivity/index.php. when multiplied by the Light Ulilization Efficiency Factor LUE equals 1.28E23 joules. The LUE is the The Carnegie Ames Standford Approach (CASA) found under the CASA description paragraph at http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/4/1/8 This LUE is for aquatic and green leaf plants and represents net production. I don’t understand how the number of joules could be an order of magnitude greater than the missing energy of 10E22 joules. Does anyone have an answer?
ABC’s cop-drama ‘Castle’ is about an author with that surname who writes best-selling novels about a female detective with the name ‘Nikki Heat’. Since she’s a fiction within a fiction, she must be the cousin of our ‘Missing Heat’, which is a fiction (ocean average temperature) within a fiction (computer models) within a fiction (manmade CO2-induced calamitous warming).
Ocean water has living organisms in it & inside their cell membranes they need both high and low density water to perform growth. Internally, their enzymes use both high and low density water conditions to drive + ion transport. The ion solutes and protein concentration being expressed make the internal cell environment that coordinated enzyme activity. So altering the water ionization influences the way proteins fold & protein configuration is a developmental factor.
At depth, under seas’ more external high density water configuration, multicellular life needs to have an internal pressure to avoid crushing collapse. Turgidity is achieved with increased water inside cells, which water Na (sodium) , H (hydrogen), & Ca (calcium) “hold” inside the cell. Na+ & H+ induce high density water configurations, whereas Ca++, Mg++ (magnesium) & K+ induce high density water configurations at charged sites of a cell. High density water, provoking fluidity and thus reactivity makes for a more active cell (ex: Na+ lowers viscosity). Deep sea fishing brings up really big fish & tropical coastal waters yield smaller fish.
Non-deep sea favors more low density water configuration & then marine organisms must inside their cells favor low density water configurations. Internal low density water configuration make K+ more likely to “move” & then the local osmotic pressure gradient activates cell enzymes. In the long run to conserve enzymes that cell locally needs to rebound into a high density water configuration. It is the extent to which loosened internal K+ gets pumped out of that cell that that can lead to breaks in the cell wall & limit the organism’s maximum upper size.
The low density water configuration inside a cell leads to a sort of resting cell; it’s more viscous (K+ raises viscosity at charged surface) & inert. The non- deep sea organism’s longevity potential (& thus chance of fish to bulk up) is impaired by entropy. In this scenario ion solutes affect it’s internal % of low/high density water configurations in play & make it so that cell can not radically just totally rewire to inter-converting from low density water to high density water inside as a way to eliminate the tendency toward consistent osmotic pressure created by that K+. (Changes of Ca translocating inside/outside living cells & K/Ca channels is well investigated,so minutiae of it’s Ca pH influences glossed over here.)
I wonder if there is more K+ being released from non-deep sea living micro-organisms’ membranes that actually augments the % non-deep low density water configuration. Likewise, is cold water upwelling bringing high density water configuration to dilute the upper low density water configuration and account for temperature trends scientists talk of.
I realize that I did not state two numbers in the previous post correctly. It should say “50x10E15 grams” and “equals 1.28x10E23 joules”. Thanks.
Re: Engineer John
My understanding is yes, they have modeled photosynthesis. I believe land use changes (conversion of forest/prairie to farmland, roads, housing, etc (i.e. the same stuff that makes UHI) is the only place that they don’t really understand… well, that and sub-Argo ocean depths (so the Trenberth thinking has been in the past).
Hopefully I didn’t just imply that clouds are well understood! That comment was just in the context of energy budget and missing heat.
The graph shows that the warming clearly has not stopped in the last decade. I hope this data puts that nonsense to rest finally.